I suspect there’s a good number of people that bought Modern Warfare 3 on the day it was released and didn’t touch the Campaign mode. I am one of these people. I bought the game on the day of release (I must admit, I can’t say I intended this but reasonable price (I recall Modern Warfare 2 was in the £50+ region when it was first released) and a deal with PSN vouchers made it an attractive offer).
So when I first sat down with the game I didn’t go into the Campaign. However, unlike the majority of players, I didn’t go into the Multiplayer either. Nope. For Mrs. Comet and I, it was all about Special Ops!
We loved Special Ops in Modern Warfare 2 and it’s no mistake to say that learning they were back, and with even more depth, was key to me buying the game on day one. There is the Mission Mode and the Survival Mode and, already, Mrs. Comet and I have sunk a fair few hours into both.
The Missions section was very much like the original Special Ops. Even the first mission was a training target run (which I still find near-impossible to get three stars on!). The rest of the missions were varied and challenging, and for my money a lot more impressive than the ones from the previous game.
They seemed bigger and more comprehensive. Like ones where you’d be in a helicopter or jeep, shooting like crazy, before then moving back on foot to complete the task and then get back to the vehicle. These felt as involved as entire levels from the campaign, but of course they were just one-shot, solitary missions to complete.
Really good stuff. We went through the lot on Regular level, one-star standard (Tactician trophy!) but no doubt Mrs. Comet and I will return to the more challenging levels and see how we fare then!
Meanwhile there’s the Survival mode, which Mrs. Comet and I have spent way more time with and yet found far more difficult and made a lot less progress! Oh, there’s been progress but for a long time we got stuck on Wave 15, where two Juggernauts show up. (I’m blaming Mrs. Comet, really. The notion of running away to survive just didn’t seem to work out for her.)
We eventually did manage to complete it, and survived a few more waves after that, but I am unclear about how many waves there are. Does it just keep going indefinitely? Surely not. There has to be a limit. Doubt I’ll ever see it, mind. All in all the Special Ops section is far superior to the Modern Warfare 2 one, and that wasn’t exactly a slouch either. I can see many more an hour being sunk into it.
Eventually I did get to turn my attention on the Campaign. So far I have got up to what I presume is the ‘controversial’ sequence of the game that I could have skipped had I selected that option: the home video being taken of a little girl in London unwittingly standing beside a van with a bomb in it that exploded. It was nowhere near as ‘shocking’ (I use that term loosely) as the airport massacre sequence from the last game (I could argue the artistic merits of that, but as a gamer it was actually a rather dull level to play through) yet I liked the style of it – short but carrying impact.
I have been very impressed with the Campaign so far. It’s been utterly spectacular. Sure the graphics aren’t on the same level of sophistication as Uncharted 3 but they still contain the capacity to wow. And the scale and sense of being epic has been well-realised. I think of the dazzling chaos of the speedboat chase away from the sub, or the riotous gobsmack of the London underground sequence, tearing past screaming commuters on the platform before watching a train carriage barrel rolling in front of me. . . I was playing whilst being happily amazed.
Each level has packed in some element of innovation that mark it out from just being a treadmill FPS, and that’s what’s kept me engaged. Like the Russian plane level – moving from zero gravity shootouts, surviving a crash (back end of plane tearing off, just like in Lost!) and then having Makarov make a fatal surprise appearance – it just packed in idea after idea. Whipping around the globe, generally in what I can only assume are relatively faithful recreations of actual places, it’s like the game can’t bear the idea of letting itself settle on any one thing or any one place for too long. It’s not a sedate experience, and it’s far from subtle – but as a straight blast of fun there’s little to top it.
It’s also strangely good to be back in the company of Soap and Price as well, Price especially. Over the course of these games he’s cemented himself as an iconic character, with an unmistakeable voice and a legendary moustache. World War 3 is breaking out but if one man can win it, it’s him.
And me, of course!
So when I first sat down with the game I didn’t go into the Campaign. However, unlike the majority of players, I didn’t go into the Multiplayer either. Nope. For Mrs. Comet and I, it was all about Special Ops!
We loved Special Ops in Modern Warfare 2 and it’s no mistake to say that learning they were back, and with even more depth, was key to me buying the game on day one. There is the Mission Mode and the Survival Mode and, already, Mrs. Comet and I have sunk a fair few hours into both.
The Missions section was very much like the original Special Ops. Even the first mission was a training target run (which I still find near-impossible to get three stars on!). The rest of the missions were varied and challenging, and for my money a lot more impressive than the ones from the previous game.
They seemed bigger and more comprehensive. Like ones where you’d be in a helicopter or jeep, shooting like crazy, before then moving back on foot to complete the task and then get back to the vehicle. These felt as involved as entire levels from the campaign, but of course they were just one-shot, solitary missions to complete.
Really good stuff. We went through the lot on Regular level, one-star standard (Tactician trophy!) but no doubt Mrs. Comet and I will return to the more challenging levels and see how we fare then!
Meanwhile there’s the Survival mode, which Mrs. Comet and I have spent way more time with and yet found far more difficult and made a lot less progress! Oh, there’s been progress but for a long time we got stuck on Wave 15, where two Juggernauts show up. (I’m blaming Mrs. Comet, really. The notion of running away to survive just didn’t seem to work out for her.)
We eventually did manage to complete it, and survived a few more waves after that, but I am unclear about how many waves there are. Does it just keep going indefinitely? Surely not. There has to be a limit. Doubt I’ll ever see it, mind. All in all the Special Ops section is far superior to the Modern Warfare 2 one, and that wasn’t exactly a slouch either. I can see many more an hour being sunk into it.
Eventually I did get to turn my attention on the Campaign. So far I have got up to what I presume is the ‘controversial’ sequence of the game that I could have skipped had I selected that option: the home video being taken of a little girl in London unwittingly standing beside a van with a bomb in it that exploded. It was nowhere near as ‘shocking’ (I use that term loosely) as the airport massacre sequence from the last game (I could argue the artistic merits of that, but as a gamer it was actually a rather dull level to play through) yet I liked the style of it – short but carrying impact.
I have been very impressed with the Campaign so far. It’s been utterly spectacular. Sure the graphics aren’t on the same level of sophistication as Uncharted 3 but they still contain the capacity to wow. And the scale and sense of being epic has been well-realised. I think of the dazzling chaos of the speedboat chase away from the sub, or the riotous gobsmack of the London underground sequence, tearing past screaming commuters on the platform before watching a train carriage barrel rolling in front of me. . . I was playing whilst being happily amazed.
Each level has packed in some element of innovation that mark it out from just being a treadmill FPS, and that’s what’s kept me engaged. Like the Russian plane level – moving from zero gravity shootouts, surviving a crash (back end of plane tearing off, just like in Lost!) and then having Makarov make a fatal surprise appearance – it just packed in idea after idea. Whipping around the globe, generally in what I can only assume are relatively faithful recreations of actual places, it’s like the game can’t bear the idea of letting itself settle on any one thing or any one place for too long. It’s not a sedate experience, and it’s far from subtle – but as a straight blast of fun there’s little to top it.
It’s also strangely good to be back in the company of Soap and Price as well, Price especially. Over the course of these games he’s cemented himself as an iconic character, with an unmistakeable voice and a legendary moustache. World War 3 is breaking out but if one man can win it, it’s him.
And me, of course!
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